Speaker Interview

I have been in touch with PostgreSQL for a little over a decade and,
since 2013 when I started working for the economic research departement of
the Swiss technology institute in Zurich, it has become the core of my job.
The institute collects data from thousands of companies operating in
Switzerland through monthly surveys. The oldest historical raw data records
go back to 1983. The indicators computed with these data are used in the
economy and in federal and local politics for the discussion on sustainable
development strategies and are considered with respect thanks to the
non-negotiable position of neutrality that the institute has committed
to.

Have you enjoyed previous pgDay Paris
conferences, either as attendee or as speaker?

I attended pgDay Paris in 2017 and I was
very impressed by the quality of the talks and the size of the event.

What will your talk be about, exactly? Why this topic?

My talk is about triggers, an approach to add functionality to plain DML
(data modification language) statements. Triggers open the opportunity to
implement complex business logic transparently and, what is possibly more
interesting they enable database developers to build an additional data
protection layer that goes beyond the already impressive mechanisms of the
role system and (RLS) row level security. I decided to talk about this
topic after an accident that corrupted important parts of our data, because
the origin of the problem and its solution were related to the usage of
triggers. This use case will be covered in the talk and is one of the
central messages, i.e. yes, do it, but be careful.

What is the audience for your talk?

Actually everybody interested in learning about database enhancements,
but more specifically people with a technical focus. The talk is not an
invitation to use triggers as a panacea, but much more a warning to use
them wisely, so it could even appeal to people not directly involved in the
implementation of their company’s policies.

What existing knowledge should the attendee have?

During the presentation attendees will see a lot of code. It is an
advantage if they have knowledge of SQL and plpgsql or another programming
language. However this is not a requirement, because the main message is
abstract and independent from the specific database used and can be applied
to different environments.